University of Virginia Library

A gaudy butterfly that sat
Upon a flaunting tulip's lap;
While from its tubes of crimson hue,
He sipt the virgin morning dew;
His tinsel wings waved by his side—
His chiefest beauty and his pride—
Bedropt in Nature's fancying hours,
Vied with the beauties of the flowers.
The star of day, from ocean's breast,
Rolled up the portals of the east,
And shone afar o'er lakes and streams,
To glad creation with his beams.
The heath-bell blue adorned the wild,
And flowers within the garden smiled:
The fluttering insect thus elate,
While cringing reptiles round him wait,
Like fops, when blest with pride and treasure,
Think all things formëd for their pleasure.
Shall then his deeds of fairest hue,
Be hid and not exposed to view;
He flaps his wings, he hummed aloud,
And thus addressed the wondering crowd:—
“Behold in me, of high descent,
A traveller of great extent;
A connoisseur of noble parts,
Adept in sciences and arts:
The eglantine and woodbine bower,
I have surveyëd in my tour;
Cowslips, carnations, I have trode,
And made the violet my abode:
When zephyrs waked my soft repose,
I dined upon the honied rose,
And revelled on the scented pea—
For all the flowers were fond of me.
My soaring wing hath dared to fly,
Up to yon towering pear-tree high;
Or perched alone, unfeared of fall,
Upon the lofty garden wall;
Nor stopt I there, till objects new,
Again attract my wondering view.
A spacious sea, extended wide,
The circling billows lashed the side,
Where living mountains stemmed the flood,
And cackled to their giant brood;
A cloud-topt tower, where thunder rings,
Monsters both with, and without wings.
All these and more, myself did brave,
That ye poor creepers can't conceive:—
But surely ye'll allow the charge,
That I have viewed the world at large.”
A sober snail, of slowly pace,
That on a leaf lay stretched at ease,
In all his life that scarce had seen
Above a cabbage or a green,
Yet deemed they yielded dainty store—
Because he ne'er had dreamt of more—
Hearing the bully boast aloud,
His dangers thus by field and flood,
Dire discontent his bosom seized,
And envy all his vitals heezed:
His body round in grief he wreathed,
While thus his woe and wants he breathed:
“Ah! cursed fate—ah! captious Nature,
That formed me such a clumsy creature!
My footless form thus keeps me here,
Through all the beauties of the year;
Till piercing winds, or driving snows,
Cut short my life and end my woes.
Oh! had I but the towering wing
Of yon gay flutterer of the spring,
I should not loiter here alone,
Alike unknowing and unknown.”
A busied bee, with humming noise,
That o'er her labours did rejoice,
Hearing at large the lengthened tale
Of empty butterfly and snail,
A conscious ardour filled her breast;
She thus the butterfly addrest:
“Vain, empty, ostentatious worm,
That no instruction can reform;
Nor sage experience with her light,
Can ever guide thy views aright,
But like the crowd that always change,
Thou lov'st the marvellous and strange;
Though thou hast roamed o'er flower and field,
What hidden truths hast thou revealed;
Or sound conclusions, drawn from nature,
Of use to thee or other creature.
Even now, while summer's sun doth shine,
Thou, idly gadding wast'st thy time;
And with thy follies dost foment,
The bursting sigh of discontent,
Through all the simple creeping tribe,
And fill'st their itching minds with pride.
I, too, have traversed all thy rounds,
And e'en o'erleaped thy largest bounds;
Toiling, with pleasure, for my hive,
To keep our commonwealth alive:
But small's the all that we have viewed,
And short's the path we have pursued.
Again, when winter chills the day,
My store shall well each toil repay,
When thou in dust shalt low be laid,
And all thy transient beauties fled.”

Our fable ends; and you no doubt,
Can easy find the moral out:
For trifles far we need not roam—
There's Butterflies eneu' at home.